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The first social media site
one of the first social media sites SixDegrees.com you could set up a profile page create lists of connections and send messages within networks. -
Friendster
Friendster was originally going to be a dating site that would help set up people with friends in common. You could create a profile include status updates and reveal your mood.
the site’s spike in popularity in 2003 caught the company by surprise. The flood of traffic took a toll on Friendster’s servers impacting users who increasingly looked to connect elsewhere. -
Facemash-Facebook
Mark Zuckerberg launched Facemash described as Harvard University’s answer to Hot or Not. The Facebook followed in 2004. Registering its one-millionth user that same year, the site became just Facebook in 2005. -
Myspace
Friendster rival Myspace quickly became the go to site for millions of hip teens.
Its customizable public profiles which often featured music videos and badly shot half-nude selfies were visible to anyone
2005 marked the apex of Myspace. The site had 25 million users and was the fifth most popular site in the US when it sold to NewsCorp. And that was the start of its decline from ultra-trendy to ultra-tacky. -
Youtube
YouTube launched on February 14, 2005 by Steve Chen Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim three former employees of PayPal -
Twitter-X
Twitter date back to early 2006, when NYU student Jack Dorsey shared a new online communication idea with some of his coworkers at a podcasting company. Dorsey's idea was a platform that allowed users to share short messages with groups of people, similar to sending text messageshttps://penningtoncreative.com/the-origins-of-twitter/#:~:text=The%20origins%20of%20Twitter%20date,similar%20to%20sending%20text%20messages. -
Tumblr
In 2007 the social network described as Twitter meets YouTube and WordPress came a-tumblin along when 17 year old David Karp launched Tumblr from his bedroom. -
hashtag
the hashtag a symbol that’s helped political organizers and average citizens mobilize promote and create awareness.
Hashtags have also helped plant the seeds that sprouted movements such as #Occupy, #BlackLivesMatter, and #MeToo. Also, timesucks like #SundayFunday and #Susanalbumparty. -
Weibo
Weibo, is essentially a Facebook and Twitter hybrid that launched in 2009, the same year Facebook and Twitter were banned in the country.
Along with WeChat and Douyin, Weibo remains one of the most popular social networks in China. -
FourSquare
Foursquare was one of the first that allowed users to check in while sharing recommendations all about their favorite neighborhoods and cities. They earned virtual mayorships while they were at it. -
Grindr
was the first geosocial networking app for dating geared towards gay and bisexual men, helping them meet other men nearby. It hookup culture and paved the way for many other geolocation dating apps -
Pinterest
went live in closed beta in 2010 launching in 2011. Pinning quickly became a favorite new hobby and verb for domestic gods and goddesses.
As of 2022 Pinterest had 445 million monthly active users, proving just how popular the site remains. -
Instagram
one of the first Instagram photos to be published by co founder Mike Krieger @mikeyk was an uncaptioned heavily filtered shot of a marina.
Instagram posts have become quite a bit more sophisticated largely due to the platform’s success and Instagram’s now the most downloaded app globally. -
Snapchat
was founded in 2011 by Evan Spiegel, Reggie Brown, and Bobby Murphy, all students at Stanford University. Reportedly Brown came up with the idea of a social media app that enabled users to post photos and videos that disappeared from the site after a few moments. -
Google Plus
was also the year Google attempted to roll out another answer to Facebook and Twitter following previous failed attempts. Google Plus’ invitation only system dropped in 2011 giving new users access to 150 invitations they could send out before the official opening. Demand was so high that Google eventually had to suspend them. -
Twitch
the hugely popular video game live-streaming site, was initially launched as a subsidiary of Justin.tv, a general interest streaming site that launched in 2007.
Apparently, A LOT of people (like 45 million unique viewers by 2013) love watching live-streamed video games. Amazon saw the spike and quickly scooped Twitch up. -
Vine
launched in 2013, but not before Twitter bought the video-sharing app for $30 billion. The premise was fairly simple videos shared on Vine could only be up to 6 seconds long—but quickly spawned a distinct genre of humor that still resonates today.
Despite the rapid success, the app had a fairly quick demise due to apps like Snapchat and Instagram following with their own video-sharing capabilities. -
Slack
dropped the same year as Google Hangouts and brought social media to the corporate world in a way LinkedIn didn’t.
Slack offers workers a place to socialize online within corporations and industry professionals a place to socialize with others in similar Slack groups. -
Patreon
While early social media influencers built followings on places like YouTube and Twitch, the monetization of their followers leveled up with Patreon.
It was created by developer Sam Yam and musician Jack Conte who wanted to create an income stream from his YouTube videos. The platform allows patrons to subscribe to monthly or exclusive creator content. -
Year of the Selfie
Twitter proclaimed 2014 as the “Year of the Selfie” following Ellen DeGeneres’s Oscar photo. That selfie has been retweeted more than three million times, setting a Twitter record and winning Twitter’s award for “Golden tweet” of the year. -
The live-streaming wars begin
Meerkat was the first app to start the live-streaming craze . Then, Twitter developed Periscope and won the streaming wars (for a while). Periscope became the go-to app for streaming and watching live events. Getting showered with hearts anytime you hit the record button was all the incentive anyone needed. It was so popular that Apple awarded the app the iOS app of the year in 2015. -
Instagram launches Stories
Taking a page from Snapchat, Instagram introduced “Stories,” allowing users to post photo and video sequences that disappear within 24 hours although they can now be saved and archived Filters stickers polls hashtags and highlights to enhance Stories have made the app even more addictive. -
TikTok
Douyin, an app by ByteDance, was released outside of China under the name TikTok. TikTok’s popularity burns through Asian countries. It became widely popularized in North America in 2019, at about the same time Lil Nas X released Old Town Road on the platform, which quickly went viral -
Facebook goes on trial for data privacy
In early 2018 it was revealed that Facebook allowed a researcher from Cambridge Analytica (one who worked on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign) to harvest data from 50 million users without their consent. Facing mounting pressure to address data privacy, Zuckerberg participated in five days of hearings before the U.S. Congress.